Epistle to James Tennant of Glenconner

Auld comrade dear, and brither sinner, / How's a' the folk about Glenconner? / How do you this blae eastlin wind, / That's like to blaw a body blind? / For me, my faculties are frozen, / My dearest member nearly dozen'd. / I've sent you here, by Johnie Simson, / Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on; / Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling, / An' Reid, to common sense appealing. / Philosophers have fought and wrangled, / An' meikle Greek an' Latin mangled, / Till wi' their logic-jargon tir'd, / And in the depth of science mir'd, / To common sense they now appeal, / What wives and wabsters see and feel. / But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly, / Peruse them, an' return them quickly: / For now I'm grown sae cursed douce / I pray and ponder butt the house; / My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin', / Perusing Bunyan, Brown, an' Boston, / Till by an' by, if I haud on, / I'll grunt a real gospel-groan: / Already I begin to try it, / To cast my e'en up like a pyet, / When by the gun she tumbles o'er / Flutt'ring an' gasping in her gore: / Sae shortly you shall see me bright, / A burning an' a shining light.

My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen, / The ace an' wale of honest men: / When bending down wi' auld grey hairs / Beneath the load of years and cares, / May He who made him still support him, / An' views beyond the grave comfort him; / His worthy fam'ly far and near, / God bless them a' wi' grace and gear!